A sane voice in a zany bubble

Beta plus to the Washington Post for giving us this alternative judgement on the President of the United States one year into his term. I suppose calling it his first depends on whether or not there will be a second. Within the framework of what we normally get from the Post by way of analysis of This administration, this is refreshing. We can only hope that it might be a sign that the media paranoia about Trump is abating and that we will enjoy a little more balance in year two of this presidency.

Molly Ziegler Hemingway (picture) is a sane voice in the zany world of US political journalism where opinions about the President are so predictable that reading them is a pointless exercise. No matter what he does, you know what they are going to say.

Like most people, I don’t particularly like Trump’s rhetorical style, juvenile insults and intemperate disposition — on full display in recent days. At the same time, having followed his career for decades, I am not surprised that he wakes up each morning as Donald Trump. And that boorish attitude has come in handy after decades of media bullying of conservatives. Ironically, the very lack of conservative bona fides that worried me two years ago means he’s less beholden to a conservative establishment that had grown alienated from the people it is supposed to serve and from the principles it ostensibly exists to promote. His surprising conservatism might also be the result of the absolutism and extremism of his critics, whether among the media, traditional Democratic activists or the anti-Trump right. If Trump were ever inclined to indulge his liberal tendencies after winning the election, the stridency and spite of his opponents have provided him with no incentives to do so. My expectations were low — so low that he could have met them by simply not being President Hillary Clinton. But a year into this presidency, he’s exceeded those expectations by quite a bit. I’m thrilled.